If you’ve really dug deep into the Bible, you’ve probably noticed there are a lot of patterns and repeating concepts, and that most of those patterns and repeating concepts are part of a huge tapestry that points to Christ.
There are some patterns that God comes right out and tells us about in His Word, for instance when Christ said the end days would be like the days of Noah or when Paul compares Christ to the Passover Lamb. That’s called an ARCHETYPE and in case you aren’t familiar with that word, it means a figure or event that represents a much greater Truth.
There are also patterns that aren’t explicitly explained, but they’re still easy to discern and recognize if you know your Bible. These types of patterns are called SHADOWS, and they symbolize and foreshadow something of even deeper significance than when they were first presented. A really easy, but very powerful example of this type of pattern is the Last Supper and Communion.
Although the disciples didn’t realize it at the time while they were participating in the Last Supper, when Christ gave them the Bread as His flesh and the wine as His blood, He was symbolizing and foreshadowing His crucifixion. Likewise, when we participate in Communion, it symbolizes His crucifixion. Two points in time, one pointing forward and the other pointing back, and both pointing to the cross. Amazing, but kinda easy to recognize on this side of the cross.
Another pattern, and one that we’ve covered in the past, is what’s called a REMEZ. That means a hint or clue. The plural for REMEZ is REMEZIM, and they’re kinda awesome, but not easily seen. One of the REMEZIM we studied was the crimson worm in Psalm 22 and how it foreshadows Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Very powerful, but not easy to see at first.
That brings us to the focus of this study series, which is patterns that aren’t that easy to see at first glance, or even second glance. These can be ARCHETYPES or SHADOWS or REMEZIM, but they don’t really jump off the pages of the Bible and say “here I am!” They have to be dug out of the ground… (like an arrowhead). These are my favorite kind of patterns and tonight we’ll be looking at a few to start the series off. Our first Profound Pattern starts in Genesis.
Gen 1:1 is a well-known verse and while it’s very powerful, it also seems pretty self-explanatory. The verses that follow it go on to detail the creation. We’re all pretty familiar. Then we have John 1:1. It mirrors Gen 1:1, but now it explicitly places Christ as the God of creation and calls Him by His famous title “THE WORD”. Just like Gen, the verses directly after, go on to summarize creation, still mirroring Gen 1:1. But here’s a question that no one ever asks. How did John come to this conclusion that Christ, as THE WORD, was both WITH GOD and WAS GOD, at creation? Well, to find out we have to do some digging, and that brings us to this other verse where Christ calls Himself the Alpha and Omega.
Btw, this is the very first thing He says to John in Rev 1 and also one of the last things He says at the end of the book. Kinda fitting that He begins and ends with this title. But here’s the thing, while John may or may not have spoken Greek, (which is the language “ALPHA AND OMEGA” is), he most definitely spoke Aramaic and Hebrew. Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, as most of you probably know. But the first and last letters of both the Aramaic and Hebrew alphabet are ALEPH and TAV, which is undoubtedly the language John received this vision in, his native tongue.
You may remember that in the Hebrew alphabet, ALEPH is the first letter. And in Paleo-Hebrew it’s written as a bull or ox head, which means “king” and symbolizes God as the AUTHOR of our faith and beginning of all of creation. Strangely, while it represents all those powerful things, it also represents a sacrifice.
The TAV was represented by a cross or x shape, which meant “mark or covenant” and also symbolized the wooden stakes that the sacrifice was offered on. TAV is connected to the sign of a covenant, a mark, (as in X marks the spot), and even a signature. In ancient times, when a covenant was made, a sacrifice was offered to signify and mark the event.
Then the sacrifice was burned by being roasted on a spit. It was then consumed by both parties of the covenant as a supper of sorts to symbolize the unity that the covenant formed. This is where the “X’ shape of the TAV came from.
When put together, ALEPH TAV, the A and the T, the AHT can easily be seen as “God the King sacrificed as the sign of the Covenant”. An amazing and powerful title for Christ to take, but… that still doesn’t explain how John came to the revelation that Christ was WITH God and WAS GOD at creation. Are you ready to see how all this comes together?...
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
What if I told you the answer has been staring us in the face the whole time? What if I told you, it was staring the pharisees in the face the whole time? In fact, it’s been right here at the beginning, since the beginning!
Right there in the very first verse of the Bible, there’s a Word that’s untranslated. The strange thing is that this Word is untranslated in every Bible translation. Even in the Hebrew to English translations and even in the Aramaic translations, this word, THE WORD, remains a mystery. If we look at THE WORD more closely, it begins to reveal some things, so let’s do that.
The word is made of those 2 Hebrew letters that we looked at, Aleph and Tav. That’s the first and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The Beginning and the End.
That’s what gets translated as the Greek letters ALPHA and OMEGA in the N.T. In the Beginning Elohim Aleph Tav created. In the Beginning God The First and The Last Created! In the Beginning God the King of kings became the Sacrifice and signed the covenant with a cross.
These are just a few of many verses that have been there from the beginning, but now the mystery is revealed, and the depth is no longer hidden. We’ll close with one last look at “In The Beginning” and hopefully give you just enough to go study the rest for yourselves.
Here we can see the English phrase, “In the beginning” is actually just one Hebrew word. It’s the very first word of the Bible: Bereshit. If we view the letters that make that word in their original Paleo-Hebrew form, we can see the pattern of Christ’s sacrifice foretold at the very beginning of creation.
The Son- of God is sacrificed- and pressed/destroyed- by the work of His own hand- on the cross of the covenant= BERSHIT… In the Beginning. Amazing.